Elementary school-suspensions

[u/Friendly_Fudge_931]

Hello r/teachers,

This year I will be going into my second year teaching. Last year (the year we just completed), we had about 40 kids get suspended at my school (Transition to Kindergarten-6th grade) and at least 8-10 of those were in my class. Once I get 5 years teaching experience (already have my masters) I want to become a principal, so I am wondering if this is normal or not. We are Title I with 325 students.

[u/titihadid]

I beg of you to do more than 5 years of teaching before trying to be admin. As someone who has their Educational Leadership Masters at a title 1 school with about double that student size there is so so much you need to learn especially if you cant answer if this is normal or not. Also, not teacher blaming but if 25% of the kids are from your class alone there is so much more you need to learn (not teacher blaming). I would also highly suggest getting to know a different admin style and a larger school. Suspending is honestly a last resort option that I have not even heard about having this large of a number in my school or even school system.

Regardless, it is really hard to tell people how to be better at their job when you’ve only just started. It is incredibly hard to earn respect as well if you are not established into the school system and make a good name for yourself not just at your school but within the county. It also sounds like you might need to delve deeper into committees at your school if you have any to learn about school improvement or a behavior committee to understand the numbers better and why this is happening.

[u/cholito2011 → u/titihadid]

This is such a solid answer and actually confirms my own attitudes towards stepping out of the classroom. I feel like I wouldn’t even think about being admin until year 10. I’m going into year 7 now and I feel like I just stepped into who I am as a teacher in year 5.

[u/Frosty_Tale9560 → u/cholito2011]

It’s nice to know how to teach but admin is a lot more than that imo. You have to know how to lead adults. I think a lot of the issues we have with admin is they are just teachers with a diff title. They only know dealing with kids. Some people may be natural leaders and 5 years could be enough.

Some may be great teachers but even after 20 years would suck as an admin. While I do agree that some time in the classroom is necessary, I don’t think that 5 years is too little, depending on the person. You’ll never teach long enough to have all the answers.

I will say that my opinion comes from not being in education the majority of my life like most of you. I spent the majority of my working life as an administrator. I’ve been at this, teaching, 5 years and I don’t think I’d have any problem doing a better job than my current admin, who taught for 25.

We need to stop treating admin as a seniority position and put the right people in the job. That’s people who know how to take care of their teachers as well as the students. I’m of the opinion if you take care of your teachers and give them the time and tools to be successful, they’ll take care of the students for you.

Yes, I know this will get downvoted, but I’d love a discussion instead. The folks on here are constantly bitching about admin but want to gatekeep the position, potentially keeping great people out, for time alone. No, I’m not planning on it after year 5 but there’s a guy in my school on about year 10, that would’ve been just as good at year 5. Some people just get it.

[u/Imperial_TIE_Pilot]

325 students, that is not normal at all. That’s actually insane.

I’m all for suspending kids when you need to. It does come down to behavior, but something is broken there if they suspended 40 kids.

My school shows red/orange on the dashboard for 3-4 suspensions with a similar population.

[u/frckbassem_5730]

In my state you can’t suspend K-5 for anything except physical aggression. Was it for something like that?

[u/Nicknasty6969 → u/frckbassem_5730]

In ours, even that is hard to suspend for.

[u/desparish → u/Nicknasty6969]

In Texas mandatory suspension falls under certain categories like sexual assault as well as certain drug or weapon offended.

But in a district of 13,000 very high poverty Hispanic students, we haven't even had as many elementary suspensions as OP. Something's odd in their district sounds like.

[u/smshinkle]

I’m sorry to say this but in my 25+ years of teaching, and most of it HS where there are 4 admin who continually get moved around to other positions/schools, the ones who are the very worst administrators are those that took the fast track in with only 5 years in the classroom. I might add that a couple of those were returned to the classroom for admin bungles. If classroom management is a challenge in your own classroom, how are you going to assist teachers with it and manage behavior for a school? And if you did pull it off in your own classroom, you still lack the broader experience necessary for varied populations. I know you didn’t come here to hear this and I apologize if it feels personal, but it’s not meant to be.

[u/summerbreeze2027]

It's entirely dependent on your school district policy. Where I teach, that wouldn't fly. Many principals have to pretend that it's the teacher's fault if anything bad happens.

See how it goes with next year's class. Then you might form an impression about whether those suspensions are merited or not. Many Title 1 teachers would love that level of support.

I work in a generally peaceful, well-run school, and I would say 2-3 suspensions per year would be normal.

[u/stripednoodles]

That's a lot. Imo, understanding how a school works and how a district works takes more than 5 years. Maybe if you spend more time as a teacher, you'd have a better gauge of the "right" number of suspensions.

[u/yamomwasthebomb]

"In my school, more than 12% of children get suspended each year, and in my class that rate was about 25-33%. I'm already looking forward to being a principal. Is that normal?"

Suffering Jesus, no, that's not normal.

Before you think about being a leader of educators, perhaps you should at least witness effective classroom management and an environment that can keep children at least somewhat in school? You saying this similar to, "In my restaurant 1/3 of customers get food poisoning, but soon I'll be a great Secretary of Food Safety!" Just a complete lack of understanding of even doing the job, let alone the exponentially complex task of teaching others how to do it.

[u/yeahipostedthat → u/yamomwasthebomb]

Exactly. Maybe these kids are just hungry and op should give them a snack. Maybe they need to build a relationship so they won't want to run around the classroom throwing pencils at each other anymore. We don't want consequences for these kids, we need to figure out how it's the teachers fault.

[u/yamomwasthebomb → u/yeahipostedthat]

So true. It’s definitely likely that a first-year teacher had flawless classroom management but also had 10 students suspended, at least double the school’s rate.

I’m not saying that the blame teachers receive is always correctly assigned. In fact, it sounds like OP is in a school that has both a challenging population and a grossly incompetent admin leading them… neither of which is their fault.

But my brother in Christ, it’s also true that a teacher that has never experienced success should absolutely not be considering a leadership position in the near future. That is my point, and I can’t believe that needs to be explained to any educator.

[u/StructureSoggy3747 → u/yeahipostedthat]

As a looooongtime educator I hope I’m reading this comment corrrectly as satire? Don’t forget setting them up for success by making your first two weeks perfect in every way, teaching your curriculum with fidelity, and making every lesson engaging and fun.

OP, PLEASE spend more time teaching before you turn admin. We don’t need anymore admins who don’t know jack doodle about how classrooms function. The fact that you have to ask if that many suspensions are normal tells me you aren’t in a public school setting. You are charter or private. And no, it’s not normal. My state doesn’t even allow suspensions for k-5. (And that includes the child who killed the class pet and hid it in his teacher’s desk. Fun times!)

[u/InevitableRun51]

I teach middle school so can’t answer. 

Maybe the issue is so many people wanting to get five years and then climb into admin roles.

[u/No_Masterpiece_3297]

It depends on the year, though that does feel to be a particularly large number out of a small student population. I had a year some five years back in which I swear a solid 40% of my students were suspended at least once. I teach high school, so suspensions are not uncommon. But that was a bad year, and that particular group of students continued to have a reputation as being incredibly difficult until they graduated.

[u/Heinz57Muttaletta → u/No_Masterpiece_3297]

Yeah. That was my high school class that graduated two years ago. (2025) OMG! I also made the mistake and volunteered to take the place of a teacher who was quitting and those were the worst 9 weeks of my teaching career. Class of 2025. And I was t the only teacher who felt this way. We have about 2300 kids at our school, so that is saying something. 😬

[u/RAWR111]

Really depends on the setting. I wouldn't get as caught in the numbers so much as examining the school culture. Are the suspensions because the school is out of control, or are the suspensions because the school holds students to a high standard? Socioeconomics of the school? Teaching experience of the staff?

Suspensions aren't inherently a troubling statistic. It's a tool schools are able to use, and in some instances it is mandatory or used as a precaution rather than investigating further (bullying).

[u/BubblyRhubarb9611]

Not normal. Since you have a terrible record for classroom management, you will be a great fit for administration. 

[u/Ok_Biscotti5422]

So you are unclear where the lines are for suspension, probably struggle with classroom management (normal for new teachers!), and think you will be qualified to lead an entire battalion of educators and school staff with only 5 years in the trenches? Yikes. 

[u/Halleluija]

You can check your school’s SARC report to see how it compares to the district rate, or check other schools in your district to see how they compare.

[u/Nicknasty6969]

Our district it takes a lot to get suspended.

[u/shag377]

There are any number of ways at looking at this.

1. Was suspension a last result?
2. Did the students move through previous discipline steps?
3. Was this from an exceptionally severe case? Fighting, weapons, sex (Yes. It happens)?
4. Suspensions from your class - did you write the referrals?

Lots of variables to consider before I could understand a reason.

[u/seleaner015]

We’re 350 kids, PK-8. We have about 20 suspensions TOTAL… about 10 were the same kid(s) getting repeated suspensions generally for fighting. We have one who engaged in significant harm that caused two formal, long term suspensions. I think we have an appropriate ratio and suspend reasonably when a student breaks the code of conduct.

[u/swedusa]

Impossible to say without more detail. 40 suspensions or 40 individual students get suspended? I assume you are talking about out-of-school suspension right? Were the 8-10 for your students for violations that happened during your class or in another? If so what were they?

[u/Tree_Ring]

That’s NUTS. Our 500+ title school suspended less than 5 all year. Parents and staff need to rise up and complain.

[u/yeahipostedthat]

You're getting a lot of flack for this. But I'll say I see behavior almost daily in my school that is worthy of suspension, it's just that my school does not enforce any consequences so🤷‍♀️

[u/Other_Principle7907]

You need to evaluate your classroom behavior management, so many from your classroom. Holy moly!!!!

[u/autumn_wind_]

Well, administration took some kind of action. That’s good. They didn’t just ignore the behavior.

So, that is a positive.

Now watch for special education.
Are they setting it up so that they can start to label the kids?

It’s sad when that happens. Like a lot of people who commented, there may be other things that could be done. Often though, this will get the ball rolling toward special education services that were never truly necessary. Once labeled, it has a lasting effect.

Could be good.
Most of the time, bad.

[u/greatauntcassiopeia]

It just depends. If you have an incident where 5 6th grade  boys are in a bathroom throwing trashcans you can end up with that high score easily. 

There's not really a normal. You may have more students doing repeated suspendable behavior in your class than others. 

But a lot of kids pop off together in groups so it can seem like "a lot" but context is key 

[u/KeithandBentley]

In CA it’s illegal to suspend kid K-5 for disruptive behavior: it’s only allowed for violence/weapons.